Book Description
In 1583 in Vienna, a 16-year-old girl suffered stomach cramps. A team of Jesuits exorcized her for eight weeks. The priests announced that they had expelled 12,652 demons from her, demons that her grandmother had kept as flies in glass jars. The grandmother was tortured into confessing that she was a witch who had engaged in sex with Satan. She was then burned at the stake. This was one of perhaps one million such executions during three centuries of witch-hunts.
In 1989 in Moradabad, India, a pig caused hundreds of people to kill one another when the animal walked through a Muslim holy ground. Muslims, who think pigs are an embodiment of Satan, accused Hindus of driving the pig into the sacred spot. Members of both faiths went on a rampage, stabbing and clubbing. The pig riot spread to a dozen cities and left two hundred dead.
A squad of armed Islamic zealots raided a Christian church at Behawalpur, Pakistan, on October 28, 2001, killing the minister, fourteen worshipers, and the church's police guard.
It is said that there is never enough religion in the world to make people love one another--just enough to make them hate one another. Incendiary blends of fundamentalist religion, politics, nationalism, and ethnic zealotry engender countless examples of atrocity in the name of faith and orthodoxy. If anything, religious persecution is more savage now than ever before in the history of mankind.
HOLY HORRORS chronicles the grim spectrum of religious persecution from ancient times to the present. Fully illustrated with drawings, woodcuts, and photographs, the book recounts such historic religious persecution as the Crusades, the Islamic jihads, the Catholic wars against heretics, the Inquisition, witch-hunts, and the Reformation. It also chronicles modern-day atrocities, including the Holocaust, the seemingly insoluble Catholic-Protestant schism in Northern Ireland, religious tribalism in Lebanon, and the barbaric cruelty of the theocracy in Iran.
Customer Reviews:
Very interesting, but could have been much better.......2005-12-22
I wasn't a religious man before I read Holy Horrors.
I never became religious reading it.
And one thing's for sure; I'm definitely not religious after having finished it.
Because I doubt that I've ever - despite having a degree in religious studies - read a book which made the entire phenomenon of religion, no matter during what era, in what culture, and what particular faith, look worse than this. Author James A. Haught writes in a way that makes him look like a militant atheist (and even if he's not then I doubt he'll ever be welcome in a church), and it's not a very happy reading.
On page after page, paragraph after paragraph, numerous examples are given where the most horrible of crimes, murder, torture, hatred and more have been carried out in the name of religion. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism; most faiths out there are made to look like the most vicious of philosophies. Mankind's ability to simply annihilate his fellow man apparently has no limits whatsoever, and worst of all: it's all true.
The human race have a tendency to show its very worst sides whenever a religious conflict appear, and to all of you who happen to believe that contemporary man has learned his lesson by now, Haught has a simple answer: Wrong. Religiously inspired murder, torture, and public executions still happen all the time all over the world.
However, Holy Horrors isn't a brilliant book, unfortunately. Because since its focus is exclusively on all the murder, blood, and gore, it simplifies what's really quite complex issues. Reality isn't as black and white as Haught makes it out to be, and even though it's both well-written and very interesting with its many illustrations, the end result still comes out as somewhat sloppy. Due to its many illustrations and large print, the total amount of text isn't very large, and obviously things like the Reformation and the witch-hunts of Europe cannot be dealt with in just a few pages.
Sure, all the blood and gore are truly awful, and all of you who see religion as something good and beautiful will have to think again, but since Holy Horrors never really dig deep into the topic the reader will remain unsatisfied.
I know I did, despite the fact that I liked what Haught had to say and how he said it.
I was not impressed.......2005-11-01
First off, let me say that I am an atheist and feel that religion is the most destructive human invention ever devised. Therefore, I was looking forward to reading this book. But for me it was rather disappointing.
As I was reading the book, I felt as though I was reading a student's term paper. The author covers numerous religious groups or time periods but in a very superficial manner. As a couple of reviewers already mentioned, the book is only 234 pages (243 with the biblio), 24 of those are full page illustrations (I know, the cover states "An Illustrated History") and the pages have unusually wide margins. In fact, the size of the margins was the first thing I noticed when I started to read the book. It's almost as though Haught didn't have enough material to fill enough pages to warrant publication. But even from what material is in the book, it is obvious that this book could have much longer and more detailed, giving it a more scholarly presentation.
Personally, I think that if an author is going to write about a controversial subject, it needs to be backed up with properly referenced facts. This book does not even come close. There is a section at the end of the book that the author calls a Bibliography but then he writes, "The following is a selected reading list, by topic." So does that mean that the books listed were used by the author as references or are some of these books just recommendations? It is rather difficult to tell because Haught uses no footnote notation. He repeatedly presents statements as fact, including historical information and figures (as in the number of deaths). He also has many direct quotes that have no reference. For example, the cover of the book highlights one corner and states, "Includes the 9-11-01 terrorist attack..." Within the text Haught includes a lengthy quote that is a translation of some of the writings found in the highjackers' notebooks in order to make the point that the 9-11 attackers were able to carry out their mission due to religious zeal - which I happen to agree with. But where did he get these quotes. I don't think he translated the notebooks themselves! Other quotes may state, "So and so said,..." but then there is no reference in the Bibliography to match up with the speaker. In addition, even if a reader was interested in following up with one of the recommended books, a significant number of them are 25 to over 100 years old. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but as some Amamzon customers may know, it's sometimes difficult to obtain a book that's over 10 or 15 years old - let alone the book titles listed as recommendations. Maybe others feel that I'm nitpicking but whenever I'm reading a book of non-fiction (especially a book that is historical, scientific or political) I look at the references to see where the author got his/her information.
I'm giving the book three stars because I feel that this is an important topic and I'm glad that author wrote about it. As he states in the book (p. 235), "As far as can be ascertained, no previous book has surveyed the phenomenon of religious homicide ["homicide" - I like that] in its entirety." I just wish the book was more thorough and that it backed up its information with better references.
Good, but..........2005-04-23
...I was a little disappointed to receive a rather slim book (234 pages), when Amazon described it as being 661 pages. I was expecting a more scholarly work, but this is a good introduction to the subject. Someone needs to write a more in-depth book on this important topic.
not bad.......2004-11-30
if you like, i recommend reading something by c.s. lewis. great stuff to read
The crimes of religion.......2004-01-25
Very well written. Direct and to the point. Shows how religious beliefs are used as acts of violence against others of different faiths. Great read for the beginner or novice.
Book Description
THEORIES OF SURPLUS VALUE is the fourth volume in Karl Marx's (1818-1883) monumental work, DAS KAPITAL (CAPITAL). Divided into three parts, this compelling work reviews classic economic analyses of labor and value (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas R. Malthus, and others), focusing on the concept of surplus value--the difference between the full value of a worker's labor and the wages received for that labor. This is a key concept for Marx, since capitalism maintains its power through controlling surplus value.
Customer Reviews:
The definative history of classical/pre-classical economics........1997-11-19
This book represents the painstaking effort of a great mind. An excrucriatingly detailed critical review of the economic literature pre-dating Marx is undertaken. Anyone seeking to understand the history of economics must carefully review this epic work. Historians too, will appreciate the extensive treatment of the contexts into which generations of economic ideas were born. Marx's revolutionary new theory of class emerges clearly from his critical reading of the great and not-so-great works which provided the foundation on which his break-throughs were built.
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Le profit, la rente et la ville: Elements de theorie
Christian Topalov
Manufacturer: Economica
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ASIN: 2717807632 |
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The Logical Foundations of the Marxian Theory of Value (Synthese Library)
Adolfo García de la Sienra
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 0792317785 |
Book Description
Written before the impressive collapse of the socialist system in Eastern Europe, this book offers a quite objective and serious systematic analysis of the Marxian labor theory of value, Marx's main scientific legacy. After reconstructing the `prototype' of this theory -- which is the theory as it was left by Marx himself in
Capital -- the author proceeds to a careful and detailed analysis of its foundational problems, taking into account Böhm-Bawerk's important criticisms. After introducing advanced contemporary formal tools, the author proceeds to a thorough discussion of the dialectical method, just in order to tackle the foundational problems of the theory. He provides a formally precise and well motivated definition of abstract labor, and then proceeds to prove the existence of a measurement of abstract labor -- i.e. the existence of numerical labor-values. Using this result, the author provides rigorous axiomatic foundations for the theory of value and then proves the existence of a Marxian competitive equilibrium, which is tantamount to the proof of the possibility of reproduction for a capitalist economy. The author finishes the book by showing in detail how the problems of the prototype are solved, by reconstructing the Leontief model of the labor theory of value on the new logical bases.
Written in a very clear style, in the language of contemporary philosophy of science, the book is of interest to philosophers of science and economists, applied logicians and all those interested in the scientific legacy of Karl Marx.
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Theories of Surplus Value
Manufacturer: Imported Pubn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0846409208 |
Book Description
The Change Champion's Fieldguide, endorsed as a book that will, "become one of the most quoted, referenced, and used business books in the first decade of the 2000's," by Vijay Govindarajan, Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business, Director, Center for Global Leadership, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, contains successful tools, instruments, case studies, and models from the best in the industry that you can immediately apply for initiating and leading change within your social or organizational system. Think of yourself as an artist and this book as your palate. Most of the elements within this book may be modified to fit your stakeholders' unique needs. The Fieldguide provides you with all of the necessary elements to champion change. The authors of this book are widely recognized as among the best in organization change and leadership development.Some of these contributors include Dave Ulrich, Marshall Goldsmith, David Cooperrider, Kathleen Dannemiller, Louis Carter, and Lawrence Susskind. They provide invaluable lessons in succeeding during crisis or growth modes and economies. As change champions, they share many similar attributes including openness to learning and collaboration, humility, innovation and creativity, integrity, a high regard for people's needs and perspectives, and a passion for change.
Customer Reviews:
This Book Doesn't Live Up to Glowing Reviews.......2006-08-30
Our Organizational Development book club selected this to read, in part, on the reputation of the editors and on the strength of the reviews on Amazon from customers and other reviewers. However, in general we found the book to be a somewhat disappointing hodgepodge of articles on change concepts and succession management. The articles ranged from the very good --Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Deviance --to the generic. There were several basic issues (including typos) that frankly should have been caught in editing. While it did have many useful chapters and contained a nice organizational structure and outline, the content itself was hit and miss, and the book unfortunately, didn't live up to its glowing reviews.
You can't become a champion without measuring your results.......2003-07-21
"This fieldguide is for all change champions who are learning about, seeking to, or who are in the midst of leading social or organizational change...The purpose of this fieldguide is to provide you with all of the necessary elements to implement a best practice change or leadership development initiative within your organization or social system. Contributors in this book are widely recognized as among the best in organizational change and leadership development. They provide invaluable lessons in succeeding during crisis or growth modes and economies...Within the forthcoming chapters, you will learn:
*Key elements of leading successful and result-driven change
*Tools, models, instruments, and strategies for leading change
*Trends and research on innovation, change and leadership
*Critical success factors and critical failure factors
*How to design, implement, and evaluate change and leadership initiatives (pp.viii-xi)".
In this context, D. Ulrich, M. Goldsmith, L. Carter, J. Bolt, and N. Smallwood (the editors) divide this invaluable book including twenty-two chapters of 'best practice' into three sections: (1). Transformational and Large Scale Change, (2). Fundamentals of Leading Change, (3). Transformational Leadership and Sustaining Results. They say, "we have different interests, clients, and approaches. We have each experienced successes and failures while hoping only for success. The failures were almost always failures to make correct assumptions about the fit between type of intervention, organizational system, and situation. It is these failures that help us learn; they make us humble and open our minds to different approaches...This fieldguide presents you with an array of choices for how to approach many complex situations. You will find many ideas that you can adapt to your own situation and needs. And, when you do lead change, lead with the same passion, humility, creativity, and commitment to stakeholders, customers, and excellence that have been exhibited by the change champions contributing to this book (from the Introduction)."
In the last chapter of the fieldguide, 'You Can't Be a Champion Unless You Keep Score,' John Sullivan focuses on importance of measuring results. He says that "If this were the Olympics, it would be obvious to all that you couldn't become a champion without measuring results. In fact, the definition of a champion is 'the one with the best results.' In the general business world the use of numbers and metrics is part of life...Within all major firms all projects, products, and business units are evaluated on the basis of numerical results. However, in direct contrast, we within HR resist using metrics, almost like developing them was the equivalent of a root canal...The Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study demonstrated that the potential impact of people programs on a firm's overall market value could be as high as 47 percent. The road is clear and the time is right. HR must now seize this unprecedented opportunity to adopt metrics and to become the next 'corporate hero' (pp.279-283)"
Therefore, after saying "metrics are the fastest and the cheapest way to change behavior in business," he demonstrates:
I.Nine reasons to utilize metrics: (1). Meeting your goals, (2). Driving improvement, (3). Obtain funding, (4). Early warning a.k.a 'smoke detectors,' (5). Understanding critical success factors, (6). Shift to fact-based decisions, (7). Metrics change behaviors, (8). Eliminate confusion, (9). Builds coordination/cooperation.
II.Eight steps in developing metrics: (1). Select a metric for each program goal, (2). Choosing between soft and hard metrics, (3). Understanding the different categories of business impact, (4). Selecting simple but attention-getting metrics, (5). Understanding the characteristics of great measures, (6). Selecting from standard HR metrics, (7). Selecting from advanced metrics, (8). Building the business case for increased HR funding.
III.Eleven decision factors for approving HR projects: (1). A low initial investment, (2). The project has a high ROI, (3). Similar projects implemented elsewhere have a high success rate or a low risk of failure, (4). The project starts right away without a long delay, (5). There is a short payback period, (6). The project has a complete set of accurate results metrics and a method for collecting metric information, (7). No new headcount is required, (8). The project has negative consequences for failure built in, (9). The program gives us a competitive advantage over other firms, (10). The program can demonstrate that it increases worker productivity, (11). A project team is credible and has high success rate on previous projects.
Finally, Sullivan writes, "HR professionals understand that the world of business has recently lost its tolerance for decisions made without facts and for programs that don't produce measurable results...Metrics can provide you with the opportunity to be superior performer by letting you know unambiguously where you are and how far you have to go. Your future path is clear; you can't become a champion...without measuring your results (pp.297-298)."
I highly recommend this invaluable fieldguide to all change champions of the future.
A Must Have for any Leader or Manager!!!!.......2003-07-12
This is like a conference within a book without the travel and expense - I learned from the top thought leaders in the field such as David Cooperrider - the creator of Appreciative Inquiry, Marshall Goldsmith - one of the world's top coaches and experts on behavioral change, Jerry Sternin - the founder of applied positive deviance, Louis Carter - one of the foremost experts in best practices in leadership and organization development, Kathleen Dannemiller - the creator of whole scale change, Dave Ulrich - one of the world's top 5 management educators ranked by Business Week, Lawrence Susskind - the Director of the Consensus Building Institute at MIT/Harvard, the well known futurist Ryan Matthews, the world's leading expert in succession planning Dr. William Rothwell, Dr. W. Warner Burke, the award winning teacher and consultant and many more! Any organization that does not have a copy of the fieldguide in their organization will seriously lack competitive advantage.
A steal for the price - like buying 22 books in 1!.......2003-07-06
This book is an absolute steal for the price. It is extremely generous in the information it provides. There are 22 chapters of the best theories, practices, and examples in change/business management and leadership/organization development -- with an eye towards getting results that matter for you and your organization. This book has already helped me to make my job more valuable inside of my organization - as well as helped me to better understand how to get my ideas implemented faster - and improved my chances of getting a promotion! Thank you to the publisher and editors for providing me with a book that has far exceeded my expectations.
Direct info. Do it Now!.......2003-07-02
Read this book line by line and you will be able to apply the suggestions and get results taht matter. The ROI in the case studies are under estimated. Notice that the outcomes take into account the people. What can I say more...go for it.
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Global Water Dynamics: Shallow and Deep Groundwater, Petroleum Hydrology, Hydrothermal Fluids, and Landscaping (Books in Soils, Plants, and the Environment)
Emanuel Mazor
Manufacturer: CRC
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ASIN: 0824753224 |
Book Description
All that makes this planet special is largely attributable to liquid water. Water in one form or another is found all over our planet, even encountered at depths of thousands of meters within the rocky crust. With a history of around four billion years, water has been around since the early days of Earth. Its presence in large amounts is unique to our planet, as are the outcomes and products of the water-involved geological processes. If Earth is to us a friendly home, it is thanks to all that water has created. Global Water Dynamics, written by renown geologist Emanuel Mazor is a unique book that deals with the global water systems via observations and multi-parametric physical, chemical, and isotopic measurements taken from a large number of springs and bore holes around the world. The obtained data leads to conclusions and working hypotheses that provide us with the detailed understanding of studied systems. It also allows us to see the forest beyond the trees, the global system of inter-related systems. These include recent cycling groundwater, connate water entrapped in sedimentary basins, as well as thermal and volcanic water systems, and the occurrence of petroleum deposits. The presented data and discussions lead to first principles analyses, as well as a long list of practical lessons. The content of this book addresses experts in the relevant fields, as well as university students in the earth sciences, hydrology, geology, petroleum exploration and exploitation, and environmental management and education.
Book Description
A primer introducing the principles and practices of wetland design. Covering the creation, restoration, enhancement, and construction of designed wetlands, this book provides a practical guide for wetland design on a local, site-specific scale, and reviews the impact of wetland design projects on the environment. More than 150 key principles and practices of wetland design and planning are presented, accompanied by detailed illustrations and case studies. 150 illustrations.
Book Description
Wetlands are among the most productive and biologically diverse ecosystems on earth. Their very diversity has produced a fragmented area of study where each wetland type is considered in isolation. This work provides a synthesis of the existing field of wetland ecology using such central themes as basic characteristics of wetlands, key environmental factors that produce wetland community types, and some unifying problems such as assembly rules, restoration, and conservation. The volume draws on a complete range of wetland habitats and geographic regions including Californian vernal pools, Amazonian floodplains and Russian peat bogs. This book provides ecological syntheses over the entire geographical and habitat range of wetlands, making Wetland Ecology essential reading for anyone planning research or management in wetland habitats, regardless of specific area of interest.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Wilson Bulletin, published by Wilson Ornithological Society on September 1, 2001. The length of the article is 947 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation. (Ornithological Literature). (book review)
Author: Darold P. Batzer
Publication:
Wilson Bulletin (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 2001
Publisher: Wilson Ornithological Society
Volume: 113
Issue: 3
Page: 354(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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